Friday Deadline Looms on Lake Bluff Online Cycling Survey

is surveying residents on their biking habits and perspectives on the accessibility and conditions of existing Lake Bluff biking facilities and trails.

Friday, Dec. 16, is the last day to take the online survey. To view the survey, visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PXD6VHG.

While the village routinely makes improvements to biking areas as a result of safety or congestion concerns posed by residents and as a result of periodic assessments, this survey is the first of its kind that will measure broadly residential satisfaction with conditions as well quantify residential aspirations for future improvements.

Once the survey results are calculated, the content will lay the groundwork for the development of a Bicycling Master Plan. The plan will serve as a significant component of the Accessibility/Transportation section of the village’s “Strategies for Vision Attainment” portion of the .

According to the goals listed within the strategic plan, the village seeks to “Develop a master plan for all desired transportation improvement. To perform a needs analysis to improve accessibility and enhance safety.”

The needs analysis will permit the village to consider actions such as sidewalk extensions and pedestrian ramp cuts, and expansion of walking and bike paths.

The Lake Bluff bicycling survey was fashioned after Lake Forest’s bicycling survey designed by the city’s planner, Megan O’Neill.

According to Lake Bluff Village Engineer George Russell, “Nearly 85 percent of the Lake Bluff survey was designed based on language borrowed directly from Lake Forest’s survey. Though the surveys are being performed by two separate communities, this is a collaborative effort. We will share our results with Lake Forest and attempt to move together in unison in our approach to implementation of future improvements.”

"The common borders of our two communities with bike paths extending through each community make this collaboration a no brainer," Russell added.

Yet another practical aspect of this partnership relates to setting the two communities up for potential grants from the state.

“Doing something like this in a cooperative effort may encourage receipt of a grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation or other funding agencies if we are able to demonstrate a regional planning effort.”," Russell said.

The survey covers a wide range of bicycling topics and concerns such as:

• “Regardless of whether or not you own a bike, please indicate how important each of the following conditions are in encouraging you to bike more than you do today?”

• “Are there places in Lake Bluff that currently discourage you from biking? If so, please identify the location(s) and route(s).”

Once the results are collected, the survey results will be tabulated in-house and the complete summary will be posted on the village website due to the amount of responses expected.

“Lake Forest received about 350 responses and we are expecting and hoping we acquire around 200. “if we can get more than 200, we would consider that a very good response," Russell said.